Report

Planned Capital Spending under Canada’s Defence Policy: 2024 Update

Feb 28, 2024

This report analyses Department of National Defence planned capital spending under Strong, Secure, Engaged, announced in 2017, as of 2024.

Highlights

The total 20-year capital spending envelope has increased by $51.5 billion since the last PBO report in 2022, from $163.3 to $214.8 billion.
New NORAD modernization projects contributed to this increase over the 20-year period studied.
Some preexisting projects within the SSE envelope experienced delays and the re-profiling of near-term expenditures into later years.
A majority of the total expenditures, 62%, are planned for the latter half of the 20-year period of study. The previous report showed a near 50/50 split of total expenditures between the first and second 10-year halves.
From 2017-18 to 2022-23, there was a cumulative shortfall nearing $12 billion between what DND spent on capital and what was originally planned under SSE.
As in the previous report, increasing annual expenditures to levels never seen before in the latter part of the period increases concerns regarding the effect of inflation discounting the purchasing power of the SSE capital envelope.